Emerging communications technologies and applications—such voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), full-motion video and wireless teleconferencing—have various quality of service (QoS) requirements (e.g., bandwidth) that are far greater than the capabilities of many existing third-generation (3G) technologies. A number of current and emerging technologies attempt to address needs such as greater bandwidth requirements—including, for example, ultra wideband, hotspot, and other variations that have relatively short ranges, in order to support high bandwidth. Commonly, such networks are also characterized by multiple technologies implemented in a single domain in order to address various needs efficiently.
Within such networks, the need for roaming between domains during the course of a communications session and, correspondingly, handovers between various access technologies becomes critical, due to characteristics of each access network implemented (e.g., long sessions, short range access, mobility, etc.). The access technologies that are commonly implemented in many office and home networks may not have ubiquitous coverage of an entire area that users move across during the course of a communications session. However, an end user needs to be able to move between these networks in a manner that is transparent to the application.
As it became more common to use communications networks in mobile environments, the concept of multihoming was developed to help solve problems associated with migrating between different types of networks while traveling. Multihoming is commonly associated with the configuration of multiple network connections on a single end user device (e.g., a computer). Conventional multihoming is intended to increase the reliability of network access, but does not necessarily improve application performance.
In some conventional multihoming applications, at least two hardware network adapters or interface units are provided with or added to an end user device (e.g., a computer). Both adapters are then configured to utilize a single local network interface (i.e., IP address). Such a configuration allows the end user device to continue using a network even if one or the other network adapter stops functioning. In some cases, the adapters may be connected to different Internet/network access points to increase the total bandwidth for use across multiple applications. Some alternate forms of multihoming assign multiple IP addresses to a single adapter on one end user device; some use various combinations of the above.
In most conventional IP multihoming systems, assignment of IP address(es) is done at the network layers (i.e., L1[PHY] or L2[Link]). Each unique type of network in a system will generally have its own unique syntax for communications and establishment of IP addresses. As an end user terminal or device is mobile—and moving between various types of networks—its adapter will require rediscovery and readdressing by each such network. Thus, conventional IP multihoming schemes can be relatively complicated and overhead intensive, as the adapter is tasked with establishing interface with various networks and their unique syntaxes.
As a result, there is a need to provide network (i.e., Link) independent multihoming in heterogeneous access networks—providing reliable handovers between various access networks, and reliable connections when no single access network is capable of full or extended coverage.